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ShelterBox Response to Syrian Crisis on Hold

ShelterBox’s response to the crisis in Syria has been postponed following a spate of violence and kidnappings in Lebanon’s capital Beirut that began on 16 August.
ShelterBox Response Team (SRT) members Alice Jefferson (UK) and Phil Duloy (UK and USA) had been working with ministers in the Lebanese government to facilitate the importation of ShelterBoxes.

They had also been planning potential distributions to Syrian refugees with several international non-governmental organisations (INGOS), including Handicap International, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR); and a consortium of eight local NGOs operating in the central Bekaa Valley. The Response Team had submitted a proposal to Lebanon’s Council of Ministers through an influential contact on Wednesday afternoon.

Later that same afternoon the armed wing of the Muqdad clan made good on its promise to retaliate to the Free Syrian Army’s (FSA) kidnapping of their fellow clansman, Hassan Muqdad, some time earlier.

Details are unclear but reports state that around 30 people were seized in the northern parts of the Bekaa Valley and in southern Beirut.